only expand along certain lines, but perfect development was impossible. Great and wonderful as was the work wrought by the theocracy and the character which it created, there came a time when instead of making men strong it weakened them by its intolerance and its rigid command of blind obedience; and the power of the theocracy began to crumble when the teachings of Roger Williams and his disciples took root and theological disputes no longer held the first place as the highest expression of intellect.

When, in the progress of society, Buckle says, its theological element begins to decay, the ardor with which religious disputes were once conducted becomes sensibly weakened. That time, in America, had not yet come, but it was foreshadowed; and it was because the narrow theology of Massachusetts broke down before spreading its destructive influence over a wider area and becoming indoctrinated in the race that it was possible for the Americans to be what they are - liberal in religion and thought, with a speculative audacity that has made them ready to embrace every new idea and explore every new realm of mind or deed. They were not clogged by hampering tradition, and of all tradition an intensely formalistic religion is the most impeditive. Buckle adds in the paragraph which has already been quoted — and it concisely reveals the change produced in the Massachusetts character by the displacement of theology as the highest expression

of intellectual activity — that “the most advanced intellects are the first to feel the growing indifference, and, therefore, they are also the first to scrutinize real events with that inquisitive eye which their predecessors had reserved for religious speculations. This is a great turning-point in the history of every civilized nation. From this moment theological heresies become less frequent, and literary heresies become more common. From this moment, the spirit of inquiry and of doubt fastens itself upon every department of knowledge, and begins that great career of conquest, in which by every succeeding discovery the power and dignity of man are increased, while at the same time most of his opinions are disturbed, and many of them are destroyed; until, in the march of this vast but noiseless revolution the stream of tradition is, as it were, interrupted, the influence of ancient authority is subverted, and the human mind, waxing in strength, learns to rely upon its own resources, and to throw off incumbrances by which the freedom of its movements had long been impaired." 1

Gorton, who served a purpose, was an ill-balanced and undisciplined man; Williams, whose light still burns with undiminished brilliance, was of splendid sanity. In that heterogeneous mixture of Antinomians and Gortonites and Quakers and other strange conglomerations of sects there was a serious element of liberal thinkers; men and

1 Buckle: History of Civilization in England, vol. i, p. 554.

women were groping in the dark to free themselves from the slavery and superstition that had for centuries overlaid thought, but which the Reformation had begun to clear away. They were sick, sick unto death, of the mockery of Christ; of the sham and pretence of the church; of religion that was forever preaching damnation but offered never a word of hope; that crucified but bathed no wounds; that to the soul-thirsty gave vinegar and tantalized with a cup of cold water. Long had they been bound only to find themselves free in a wilderness; they were longing to use their freedom, but they did not know how to exert their strength. It was natural, when restraint had been cast off, that they, not having experienced that long discipline which hardens character and brings it under control, should go to extremes and take up with every vagary that promised the intellectual liberty they so ardently craved. Almost each man felt he was privileged to create his own moral code. Some were opposed to all forms of government because it elevated men in authority over their fellows, and they were able to prove to their own satisfaction that Christ taught that all men stood equal before Him. It was sufficient for a man to refuse to obey a law because he was unable to reconcile it with his conscience. Ingenuity could find in the Bible that a man was permitted one wife or many. There was, we are told, either too much marriage or too little. It was a strange, tumultuous, undisciplined,

muddle-headed band of extremists, but with the germ of an idea in their not over-logical brains, that the tyranny and precise formalism of Massachusetts drove to seek refuge in Rhode Island.

Out of that ruck rises the majestic figure of Roger Williams, as impressive in its dignity and strength of character and liberality two hundred years in advance of his time as Everest towering over the plains in the mystery of its solitary grandeur. Williams was able to distinguish between liberty and license, to grant freedom to all men, and yet to require the obedience of all to the discipline of law and the will of society. In a letter that has often been quoted he defended himself from the charge that the freedom he contended for led to licentiousness and every kind of disorder, and used the wellknown illustration of the captain and the ship. "There goes many a ship to sea," he wrote, “with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common; and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or a human combination, or society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm, that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges: that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks, be forced to come to the ship's prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any." Yet notwithstanding this liberty, he

maintains, "the commander of this ship ought to command the ship's course, yea, and also command that justice, peace and sobriety be kept and practised, both among the seamen and all the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform their service, or passengers to pay their freight; if any refuse to help in person or purse, towards the common charges or defence; if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace and preservation; if any shall rise up and mutiny against their commanders and officers; if any shall preach or write, that there ought to be no commanders nor officers, because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters nor officers, no laws, nor orders, no corrections nor punishments; I say I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel, and punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits." If Williams had done nothing more than to write this letter, it would have established his perdurable fame.

Massachusetts was the attempt to establish a political community on a basis of religious tyranny, an experiment often before made; Rhode Island, much more wonderful, was to see for the first time a political organization foundationed on religious liberty, which succeeding was powerfully to affect the thought not only of America but of the whole

1 Arnold: History of Rhode Island, vol. i, p. 225; Larned, vol. iv, p. 2713.